Anthropology off the Shelf : Anthropologists on Writing

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In Anthropology off the Shelf, leading anthropologists reflect on the craft of writing and the passions that fuel their desire to write books.- First of its kind volume in anthropology in which prominent anthropologists and 3 respected professionals outside the discipline follow the tradition of the "writers on writing" genre to reflect on all aspects of the writing process - Contributors are high-profile in anthropology and many have a strong presence outside the field, in popular culture - Unique in its format: short essays, revealing and straightforward in content and writing style

Alisse Waterston is Professor of Anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. Author of Love, Sorrow and Rage: Destitute Women in a Manhattan Residence (1999), she is currently working on two intimate ethnographies: Out of the Shadows of History and Memory: Writing My Father’s Life and Narrating Poland.

Maria D. Vesperi is Professor of Anthropology at New College of Florida and a trustee of the Poynter Institute. Author of City of Green Benches: Growing Old in a New Downtown (1986), she is currently completing a book on the relationship between ethnographic narrative and narrative journalism and developing a 150-year social history of a utopian community turned company town.

Acknowledgments

p. vii

Notes on Contributors

p. ix

Foreword

p. xiii

Introduction: The Writer in the Anthropologist

p. 1

Conceptions

p. 13

Speaking Truth to Power with Books

p. 15

Remember When Writing Was Fun? Why Academics Should Go On a Low Syllable, Active Voice Diet

p. 21

The Bard

p. 35

Saggin' and Braggin'

p. 46

Stories for Readers: A Few Observations from Outside the Academy

p. 60

Creations

p. 63

Writing Poverty, Drawing Readers: Stories in Love, Sorrow and Rage

p. 65

Write-ous Indignation: Black Girls, Dilemmas of Cultural Domination and the Struggle to Speak the Skin We Are In

p. 79

Writing Truth to Power: Racism as Statecraft

p. 93

Remembering Octavia

p. 101

Believing in Anthropology as Literature

p. 106

Receptions

p. 117

Walking in Zora's Shoes or "Seek[ing] Out de Inside Meanin' of Words": The Intersections of Anthropology, Ethnography, Identity, and Writing

p. 119

Off the Shelf and into Oblivion?

p. 134

"Don't Use Your Data as a Pillow"

p. 146

The Trope of the Pith Helmet: America's Anthropology, Anthropology's America